It has long been known that physical activities are important to promote and maintain good health, mainly if we consider the particularities of modern life associated with sedentary habits, inadequate nutrition, stress, and high competitiveness.
Among the physical activities recommended by health professionals we can point out the exercises performed on dry land or in exercise devices, such as treadmills, which basically comprise a support structure or chassis, carrying a belt onto which the individual can execute jogging movements.
On the other hand, the benefits obtained from the exercises performed in water are also known. Water provides an important buoyant support for the body of a person exercising in a partially submersed condition, allowing the individuals with several deficiencies, such as overweight, weakness, or with little control of the upper or lower limbs, or even of the trunk, to perform physical exercises, in order to maintain or to recover health conditions in post operative and in therapeutic treatments. The buoyant support promoted by the water and the resistance and refrigeration offered thereby promote remarkable results, without submitting the person to impacts over his/her joints. Excercising on submersed treadmills is wid the art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,376 describes an exercise device comprising a tank or swimming pool presenting sufficient dimensions to allow an individual to perform exercises therewithin in a partial submersed condition and on a treadmill mounted inside the tank. Forced circulation of water is provided in this device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,469 describes an exercise device that comprises, basically, a tank or a swimming pool containing a certain level of water and housing a submersed treadmill. Pump means are further provided to produce forced circulation of water inside the tank.
In the constructions mentioned above, the treadmill is fixedly mounted in the interior of the tank or swimming pool. Thus, the tank or swimming pool operates exclusively and compulsorily with the treadmill.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,788 discloses a platform, onto which is mounted the treadmill and which only moves in the vertical direction, being displaced between a submerse operative position and an inoperative position, elevated above the water level, in order to make easy for a disabled person usually sitting on a wheelchair to enter the treadmill.
Thus, the devices for aquatic exercises of the treadmill type considered herein have the inconvenience of requiring the provision of a tank (or swimming pool) exclusively for the operation thereof, since they remain constantly mounted in a submersed operative condition, occupying a respective portion of the area of the tank (or swimming pool) in which they are installed.
These known devices, when installed in the swimming pool of a club, gymnastic center, or swimming school, for example, reduce the useful area of the swimming pools, usually making infeasible to use said pools for other aquatic activities. For this reason, the devices mentioned above are invariably associated with the provision of a specific tank or body of water for the installation of the treadmill, which requires larger space and higher investments for the installation and maintenance of one or more tanks.